Association survey rases some worrsome questions about employee compensation gaps. When affiliates of the North American Equipment Dealers Association conducted their Compensation and Benefits Survey among dealer-members last fall, they wisely splitit up into six volume categories. That way, one could see what dealers in the 3-5 million dollar volume bracket, for instance, were paying their top techs, the top salesman, the setup person and just about everybody. And then this could be compared to the going wages among, say, dealerships over 10 million dollar. (The other volume segments: Under 1 million dollar, 1-3 million dollar, 5-7 million dollar and 7-10 million dollar.) As some readers may already know, when I come into possession of a bunch of numbers about this business, I like to fiddle with them. Sometimes, before this compulsion passes, I come up with some useful conclusions. For instance, a few years ago, I did a two-decade study that showed that gross wholegoods margins were shrinkingand sales personnel compensation was taking a bigger bite of the smaller margin. It was because of the deterioration of applied sales management.
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